Latin 'Porto' The Root Of Scores Of English Words

AlexRaths / Getty Images/iStockphoto

AlexRaths / Getty Images/iStockphoto

ROB KYFFSpecial To The Courant

Was the porterhouse steak born in Manhattan, Cambridge, Mass., or Georgia?

Like a wandering sailor, the Latin root "porto" has a girl in every . .. well, port. "Porto" means "carry," and this roamin' Roman root has sailed into scores of English words, serving us both the steak ("porterhouse") and the sizzle ("sports").

Portly — Originally "portly" meant "carrying oneself with dignity, stateliness," and referred most often to noblemen. But, perhaps because well-fed aristocrats tended to be overweight, "portly" acquired its current meaning of "stout, corpulent."

Sports — Because enjoyable and playful activities "carry" us away from our humdrum pursuits, these diversions were first called "disports," from "dis-" (away) and "portare" (carry). Soon "disports" was shortened to "sports."

Support — Derived from "sub--" (beneath) and "port" (carry), "support" literally means "to carry from beneath, sustain." This sense of carrying also survives in "purport" (to convey the meaning of) and "report" (to bring back information).

But whence "porterhouse steak"?

During the 1700s, London brewers started producing a hearty, dark beer.

Strong and inexpensive, it proved so popular with the city's hard-working porters that it became known as "porter's ale," later shortened to "porter."

(Today, this would be like calling a type of beer "sports fan.") Soon pubs and restaurants in Britain and the U.S. became known as "porterhouses."

(Vegetarian Trigger Alert!)

Some linguistic historians believe that, because one such porterhouse, Morrison's on Manhattan's Pearl Street, began serving large, T-boned chops around 1814, these cuts became known as "porterhouse steaks."

But others disagree, attributing the term to — take your pick: a Cambridge, Mass., hotel and restaurant owned by Zachariah B. Porter; a hotel called "The Porter House" in Flowery Branch, Ga.; or a porterhouse in Sandusky, Ohio, where Charles Dickens reportedly enjoyed the steak so much that, while visiting a hotel in Buffalo, he asked for "a steak like you get at the porterhouse in Sandusky."

Or perhaps Dickens paraphrased the plea of one of his characters, "Please, sir, may I have more porterhouse?"